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e  Garden  and  the  Cross 


JOHN  KELMAN 
D.D. 


,-v 


OLOGiCAL  St**^' 


l^&7.. 


The  Garden  and  the  Cross 


A  SERMON 

Delivered  in  the 

Fifth  Avenue  Presbyterian  Church 

New  York  City 

Sunday,  January    11,  1920 


By  the  Pastor,  the 

REV.  JOHN  KELMAN 

D.D. 


^NRV  OF  PRI/VCf^ 
AUG    28  1979 


Printed  by  the  Fifth  Avenue  Presbyterian  Church 


Copyright  1920 
John  Kehnan,  D.D. 


The  Garden  and  the  Cross 

By  Rev.  John  Kelman,  D,D. 


The  Garden  and  the  Crow— Matthew  59-60:  John  19:  41 


VERY  little  is  known  about  Joseph  of  Arima- 
thea.  He  was  a  counsellor,  both  rich  and  in- 
fluential, and  either  he  had  settled  in  Jeru- 
salem, emigrating  from  the  village  of  Arimathea,  or 
perhaps  he  may  have  retained  his  Arimathean  home, 
•while  he  had  purchased  for  himself  a  city  garden 
in  which  he  had  made  his  tomb.  In  any  case  he 
seems  to  have  been  a  man  of  refined  and  gentle 
tastes,  to  whom  a  garden  was  a  precious  thing.  He 
had  been  impressed  by  Jesus,  but  it  was  characteris- 
tic of  his  disposition  that  he  had  not  come  out  into 
the  open,  but  had  lived  as  a  secret  disciple  and  sup- 
porter of  the  Master.  We  read  that  he  had  not  con- 
sented unto  the  deed  of  the  others,  and  very  proba- 
bly he  had  been  absent  from  the  trial  where  all  seem 
to  have  been  at  one  in  their  verdict  of  condemnation. 
After  Jesus  had  died  he  came  forward  with  those 
tender  ministries  which  culminated  in  the  burial  de- 
scribed in  the  text. 

Curiously  he  appears  as  a  great  figure  in  the  later 
Arthurian  romances.  We  read  of  him  in  stories  of 
the  Holy  Grail,  connected  with  an  establishment  at 
Glastonbury,  and  in  the  year  63  A.  D.  we  find  him 
building  the  first  British  oratory  with  twisted  twigs 
on  an  island  in  the  River  Brue.  These  legends  show 
how  deeply  he  had  impressed  the  imagination  of 
our  fathers  and  how  much  he  had  endeared  himself 
to  their  hearts. 

3 


1.  First  of  all  let  us  tell  to  ourselves  again  the 
beautiful  story.  It  begins  with  Joseph  and  his  gar- 
den. The  garden  is  a  characteristic  feature  of  the 
Holy  Land.  "Many  a  sweet  vista  in  Palestine  is  seen 
framed  in  trellised  vines,  or  in  passion-flower 
swinging  over  a  roofed  fountain  or  a  garden  house." 
Men  planted  orchards  and  enclosed  them  with  a 
wall  or  a  thorn  hedge.  They  irrigated  them  arti- 
ficially, or  diverted  streams  towards  them,  so  that 
those  who  approached  along  the  dusty  highway  were 
refreshed  even  in  passing  with  the  sound  of  falling 
or  of  running  water.  Some  of  these  gardens  have 
become  famous  from  their  magnificence  and  their 
beauty.  Such  were  the  King's  Gardens  near  the  Pool 
of  Siloam,  wonderful  gardens  of  roses  and  of  spices. 
But  many  a  private  man  had  his  little  plot  of  land 
where  he  spent  his  leisure  time  among  flowers  of 
his  own  cultivating,  and  shady  trees  under  which  he 
found  retirement  and  solitude.  When  Titus  was  be- 
sieging Jerusalem  it  was  among  garden  trenches 
outside  the  walls  that  on  one  occasion  he  was  nearly 
captured  by  the  Jews. 

These  garden  solitudes  meant  much  to  Israel.  The 
life  of  Palestine  was  all  lived  in  the  open,  and  the 
publicity  of  it  must  sometimes  have  been  very 
wearing  to  the  nerves  and  trying  to  the  strength  of 
men.  Houses  were  built  so  as  to  give  the  appearance 
of  aggressive  ruinousness,  and  past  the  blind  walls 
of  these  the  screaming  streets  zigzagged  through 
cities  and  villages.  But  the  apparent  ruin  was  often 
a  very  gorgeous  little  palace,  opening  with  all  its 
windows  upon  a  garden,  where  nature's  voice  might 
be  heard  continually  calling,  Come  unto  me  and  I 
will  give  you  rest.   The  reason  for  this  curious  habit 

4 


of  architecture  has  of  late  centuries  been  largely  the 
rapacity  of  the  tax-collector.   But  it  has  deeper  roots 
than  that,  and  somehow  fits  exactly  with  the  Oriental 
nature.    There  is  something  which  makes  a  secret 
place  congenial  to  the  Eastern.    The  genii  of  the 
desert  derived  their  name  from  the  same  root  as  the 
word  for  garden,  and  the  garden  city  of  Jenin  obvi- 
ously bears  the  same  origin.     The  violent  contrast 
between  these  sweet  retreats  and  the  noise  and  bustle 
of  life  outside  their  walls  made  them  veritable  para- 
dises to  the  imagination  of  men  and  women.    They 
were  the  favorite  spots  for  meditation  and  for  prayer. 
In  them  the  family  held  its  gatherings.    Lights  were 
swung  in  the  darkness  among  the  green  branches 
of  the  trees  and  the  sound  of  music  and  laughter 
was  wafted  out  from  such  secluded  places  to  arouse 
a  wistful  moment  of  envy  in  the  heart  of  those  who 
passed  by.    Thus  religion  and  romance  combined  in 
the  idea  of  the  hortus  conclusus   (the  garden  en- 
closed), so  sweetly  sung  in  the  Song  of  Solomon. 
It  is  significant  that  the  Paradise,  alike  of   Jews, 
Mohammedans  and  Christians,  has  always  been  con- 
ceived of  as  a  garden. 

So  far  then,  one  might  naturally  think  of  Joseph 
as  being  ''a  good  easy  man,"  a  man  somewhat  luxuri- 
ous in  his  tastes,  and  bent  upon  enjoying  the  full 
beauty  of  life.  There  was,  however,  a  tomb  in 
Joseph's  garden.  This  might  give  the  impression 
that  we  had  been  mistaken  in  conceiving  the  garden 
as  a  voluptuous  thing,  and  might  lead  us  to  imagine 
that  it  was  but  an  enclosure  with  which  a  melancholy 
person,  prone  to  thinking  upon  death,  had  surrounded 
his  tomb.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  while  the  presence  of 
the  tomb  does  indeed  show  us  Joseph  to  have  been 

5 


a  serious  and  thoughtful  man,  it  by  no  means  takes 
away  the  sense  of  luxuriousness  from  the  garden. 
Indeed  the  tomb  is  the  last  word  of  luxury  in  such 
a  case,  and  the  mystic  dreaming  which  centers  around 
a  man's  own  grave  may  become  to  an  imaginative 
nature  an  extremely  voluptuous  experience.  It  is  in 
this  way  that  a  cultivated  mind  may  bid  defiance  to 
mortality  and  make  even  death  the  minister  of  his 
pleasures.  The  tomb  is  sombre  but  there  is  no  neces- 
sary harshness  in  its  presence  here.  He  will  play 
with  the  spectre  for  a  little  time  now  and  then  and 
find  the  sun  shining  all  the  brighter  when  he  returns 
to  the  world,  with  the  comfortable  assurance  that, 
after  all,  he  is  not  dead  yet. 

Little  did  Joseph  think,  while  he  planned  and 
walked  in  his  garden  under  the  sweet  and  fragrant 
shade  of  trees,  of  the  strange  shadow  that  would 
one  day  fall  across  it.  For  many  a  day  and  year 
he  had  watched  his  plants  growing,  until  the  saplings 
cast  longer  and  heavier  shadows,  dappling  the  lily- 
sprinkled  ground.  But  one  day  there  arose  upon  the 
hill  just  beyond  his  wall,  a  savage,  strange,  and  un- 
couth thing,  shapeless,  horrible,  and  suggestive,  that 
changed  everything.  The  garden  could  never  be  the 
same  again,  nor  could  Joseph.  We  ask  ourselves 
how  much  he  knew  of  Calvary,  and  it  is  probable 
enough  that  he  knew  everything,  and  that  in  despair 
of  any  help  he  had  absented  himself  from  the  scene 
of  the  trial.  Yet  when  the  cross  actually  arose  and 
its  shadow  was  flung  upon  his  pleasance,  not  only 
was  the  garden  changed :  the  touch  of  the  cross  upon 
it  changed  Joseph  also.  It  shamed  him  out  of  all 
his  associations  and  cut  him  off  from  everything  he 
had  held  dear.     It  turned  for  him  the  glory  of  the 

6 


Jewish  world  to  ashes,  and  it  made  of  him  a  new 
man,  definitely  and  heroically  Christian. 

That  wheeling  shadow  did  more  than  touch  the 
garden  with  its  magic  spell.  The  cross  stood  like  the 
index  of  some  ghastly  dial,  and  we  see  from  Calvary 
its  black  image  sweeping  round  the  world.  Ah,  that 
mighty  cross !  What  power  it  has  to  change  all  that 
it  touches !  Its  power  was  felt  by  the  guilty  Jewish 
world  and  the  faded  world  of  the  Greek.  It  pene- 
trated below  the  surface  prejudices  of  the  nations 
and  quenched  the  evil  lights  that  lit  their  treacherous 
depths.  Joseph  was  not  the  only  dreamer  whom  that 
day  brought  to  face  reality.  In  richer  and  more 
tragic  meaning  the  shadow  of  the  cross  fell  upon  all 
earth's  gardens,  swept  round  the  world  of  man's 
ambitions  and  his  sins,  and  quenched  the  very  flames 
of  hell  within  innumerable  souls. 

Think  of  Joseph  walking  on  that  day  in  his  garden 
— that  hideous  day.  He  hears  all  that  is  transacted 
on  the  hill  above  him,  the  noise  and  tumult  and  the 
strident  cries  of  men  whose  throats  are  dry  with 
the  dust  of  the  execution-ground.  He  hears  the 
hammering  of  nails  and  all  that  follows  it,  to  the 
very  death-cry  of  Jesus  that  rends  the  air.  Then, 
when  all  is  over,  the  garden  is  so  changed  for  Joseph 
that  there  is  but  one  possible  use  for  it.  While  Jesus 
was  alive  Joseph  had  hung  back  from  Him,  feeling 
perhaps  that  He  had  power  enough  to  defend  Him- 
self. But  now,  when  He  has  been  left  to  the  mercy 
of  men  and  has  not  exercised  His  power,  the  respon- 
sibility for  all  that  is  left  of  Him  falls  upon  His 
friend.  Criminals  were  buried  at  sunset,  their  bodies 
thrown  into  the  pit  beside  the  cross:  there  shall 
be  no  sunset  malefactor's  pit  for  Jesus.    The  new 

7 


tomb  and  its  use  are  obvious.  He  must  come  here. 
So  Jesus  came  to  Joseph,  dead — Jesus,  who  might 
have  come  to  him  Hving,  had  Joseph  willed  it  so.  A 
strange  guest  indeed,  coming  to  the  garden  tomb; 
though  the  cross  had  touched  it  and  the  ground  was 
sprinkled  now  with  sweet  spices  of  burial  before 
its  time.  There  laid  they  Jesus,  and  this  was  His 
homecoming  from  His  enemies  to  His  friends.  This 
was  Jesus'  way  of  entering  Joseph's  garden.  Did 
Joseph  himself,  we  wonder,  lie  afterwards  in  that 
tomb,  sharing  with  Jesus  the  dreadful  realism  of 
the  grave?  We  cannot  tell.  At  least  on  that  day- 
Jesus  was  his  guest. 

Rest  weary  Son  of  God ;  Thy  work  is  done 

And  all  Thy  burdens  borne ; 
Rest  on  that  stone,  till  the  third  sun  has  brought 

Thine  everlasting  morn. 

Touched  by  that  shadow  of  the  cross,  Joseph's 
garden  blossomed  into  flowers  in  the  spring-time. 
But  there  were  new  and  strange  flowers  growing 
there  now  beyond  all  the  beauty  of  former  days.  In 
that  new  tomb  there  was  planted  the  seed  of  human 
immortality  and  eternal  life.  Among  those  flower- 
beds there  sprang  up  the  plant  of  a  love  that  death 
cannot  kill,  whose  seedlings  have  been  transplanted 
far  and  wide  and  are  now  growing  in  every  land. 
Thus,  when  next  we  read  of  it,  there  are  angels  in 
the  garden,  and  a  woman  longing  for  a  departed 
friend.  Finding  Jesus,  she  falls  upon  the  ground 
and  clasps  His  feet,  giving  herself  to  Him  in  ten- 
derest  abandonment.  "Mary."  "Rabboni."  It  is 
the  shortest  dialogue  recorded  upon  earth,  and  in  it 
is  the  utter  self-surrender  of  mankind  and  the  eternal 
acceptance  of  God.    We  are  told  that  she  had  sup- 

8 


posed  Him  to  be  the  gardener,  and  she  was  not 
wrong  in  that  supposition:  for  He  is  the  Lord  of 
that  garden  and  all  others — ^Lord  of  the  garden  of 
the  souls  of  men  and  women,  Who  henceforth  shall 
plant  in  them  the  seeds  of  all  good  things.  And 
with  His  entrance  the  secluding  gates  were  broken 
and  flung  aside  forever.  The  garden  that  had  been 
so  secret  became  now  a  hospitable  place,  free  for  the 
entrance  of  the  glory  of  heaven  and  the  outgoing  of 
human  love  so  long  as  time  shall  last. 

2.  Now  let  us  see  what  all  this  means  for  our 
own  life  and  its  experience.  It  is  an  old  and  very 
beautiful  story,  but  like  other  such  tales  it  is 
strangely  ''applicable  yet."  All  through  the  ages  men 
and  women  have  found  that  "a  garden  is  a  lovesome 
thing,  God  wot,"  and  the  garden  idea  is  worth  con- 
sidering in  this  connection.  English  literature  is 
singularly  rich  in  it  and  many  of  our  most  beautiful 
essays  and  poems  show  what  it  has  meant  to  our 
shy  and  reticent  race.  ''God  Almighty  first  planted 
a  garden,"  says  Bacon,  "and  indeed  it  is  the  greatest 
refreshment  to  the  spirits  of  men;  without  which 
buildings  and  palaces  are  but  gross  handiworks." 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson  in  a  well-known  sentence 
has  reminded  us  that  "it  is  a  shaggy  world,  and  yet 
studded  with  gardens;  where  the  salt  and  tumbling 
sea  receives  rivers  running  from  among  reeds  and 
lilies."  No  reference  of  them  all,  perhaps,  is  more 
satisfying  than  Mrs.  Florence  McCunn's  words  in 
which  she  tells  us,  "Time,  which  makes  our  politics 
obsolete,  only  makes  our  gardens  old-fashioned." 
Through  all  the  centuries  the  literature  of  gardens 
has  been  a  thing  by  itself,  and  with  all  its  great  beauty 

9 


it  has  stood  for  a  selfish  element  in  art  and  letters. 
The  aristocratic  spirit,  that  delights  in  exquisite 
things,  wards  off  the  vulgar  crowd  and  retires  to  its 
cultivated  retreat  with  a  fastidious  relief.  From  that 
secluded  garden  of  the  Decameron,  sleeping  among 
its  cypresses  at  Fiesole,  down  to  those  dainty  en- 
closures which  still  breathe  the  fragrance  of  by-gone 
ages  in  the  precincts  of  great  houses  in  England  and 
in  France,  the  garden  has  been  the  most  deliberate 
of  luxuries.  It  has  stood  for  a  private  place  in  which 
the  spirit  lingers  among  the  things  it  loves  most 
dearly.  It  is  an  enclosure  beautiful  and  fresh,  a  place 
set  apart  from  the  daily  toil,  relaxed  from  strenuous- 
ness  of  any  kind.  Labor  should  know  its  limits,  and 
this  is  luxury  that  lies  beyond  them. 

Much  as  we  admire  and  delight  in  this  sweet  and 
pleasant  heritage  that  comes  to  us  from  the  poetic 
and  luxurious  past,  conscience  cannot  be  content 
with  it,  as  a  final  ideal  for  the  pleasures  of  life.  The 
garden  can  no  longer  be  regarded  as  an  insignificant 
place  of  mere  rest  and  refreshment.  It  is  a  more 
important  factor  in  man's  spiritual  development  than 
either  the  battlefield  or  the  market-place.  It  may  be 
a  place  of  secret  idolatry,  corrupting  the  very  souls 
of  those  that  walk  in  it.  It  may  be  a  place  of  mere 
self-indulgence,  hindering  the  spirit  of  man  and  de- 
taining it  on  its  arduous  way — a  standing  temptation 
to  its  lingerers  to  stay  too  long  aloof  from  the  toil- 
some and  painful  world  outside.  But  a  change  has 
come  of  late  years  upon  the  idea  of  the  garden.  In 
former  times  it  was  a  thing  possible  only  to  the  rich. 
Today  all  the  world  is  preparing  gardens  for  the 
poor.  Nothing  is  more  typical  of  the  swiveling  round 
of  conscience  from  one  set  of  virtues  and  vices  to 

10 


another,  than  the  change  in  all  nations  which  has 
made  the  old  complacency  no  longer  possible.  When- 
ever men  today  begin  to  shut  themselves  in  exclu- 
sively for  the  purpose  of  enjoying  the  good  things  of 
this  life,  the  insistent  cry  of  the  world's  poverty  and 
misery  condemns  them  in  the  consciences  of  all 
worthy  citizens.  Indeed  that  cry  penetrates  to  their 
own  conscience,  and  will  not  let  them  rest.  The 
social  battle  has,  as  Mr.  Benjamin  Kidd  has  told  us, 
been  won  in  the  consciences  of  the  wealthy  and  the 
powerful,  and  it  is  there  that  it  will  always  gain  its 
victories.  The  garden  of  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries  is  no  longer  a  possible  ideal.  It  has 
been  supplanted  by  the  cottage  garden  of  the  coun- 
try, and  the  children's  play-gardens  which  are  now 
an  institution  even  in  the  poorest  slums  of  the  city. 

There  is  no  more  patent  and  significant  testimony 
to  the  power  of  the  cross  than  this.  The  shadow  of 
the  cross  has  changed  the  gardens  of  the  world.  The 
sense  of  the  world's  pain  and  suffering  has  abolished 
the  old  and  created  the  new  social  conscience:  and, 
in  the  main  issues  of  our  social  life,  the  victory  of 
the  cross  is  already  won  in  the  consciences  of  the 
powerful. 

The  garden  idea  is  also  applicable  to  our  individual 
lives.  We  all  know  many  beautiful  spirits,  the  most 
charming  of  all  our  friends,  who  give  us  the  sense 
of  a  race  of  aristocrats  of  the  soul.  They  inhabit 
withdrawn  and  secret  places.  Theirs  is  the  garden 
enclosed,  the  fountain  sealed,  and  they  linger  where 
the  dew  of  herbs  is  laden  with  fragrance  under 
morning  and  evening  light.  Theirs  is  the  garden  of 
thought.  Their  mind  dwells  among  choice  books 
whose   literary   beauties   never   wither,   though   the 

11 


roots  of  those  trees  of  knowledge  may  have  been 
planted  centuries  ago.  Theirs  too  is  the  garden  of 
the  heart,  and  they  are  delicately  sensitive  to  the 
finest  shades  and  possibilities  of  emotion.  All  these 
are  secret  and  reticent  things,  flying  sentiments  thajt 
shrink  from  the  touch  of  any  but  initiated  finger- 
tips. They  are  the  Diana  of  the  garden,  continually 
eluding  the  huntsman  in  thickets  of  the  glade.  Others 
there  are  whose  garden  is  that  of  the  home,  shutting 
in  a  little  company  of  dearest  friends.  Few  guests 
are  there,  for  the  gates  are  jealously  guarded  and 
the  general  public  passes  on  its  way,  left  to  mind  its 
own  business,  and  to  express  its  joy  and  heal  its 
sorrow  for  itself.  Within  the  sacred  pale  of  home 
there  is  the  tender  luxury  of  motherhood  and  father- 
hood, the  joy  in  children  and  the  children's  joy  in  life 
and  love.  But  it  is  an  essentially  exclusive  precinct, 
apt  to  grudge  any  share  that  the  homeless  may  beg 
of  it.  There  is  also  the  garden  of  our  sorrows,  where 
each  new  tomb  is  hewn  out  of  the  living  rock  of  life. 
When  grief  comes  to  us  we  shrink  back  from  all 
consolations  of  friends.  We  shall  not  admit  even 
our  dearest  to  share  our  tears  with  us.  Our  sorrow 
is  our  own  and  let  men  keep  their  hands  from  it : 
as  though  the  touch  of  any  communication  seemed  to 
profane  the  austere  luxury  of  grief. 

So  there  are  many  singers  and  mourners  upon 
garden-seats,  who  still  for  one  reason  or  another 
stay  aloof  from  the  general,  shut  themselves  in  and 
let  the  world  go  by.  These  are  sweet  places  of  imagi- 
nation and  of  dream,  of  desire  and  regret,  and  to  a 
certain  extent  they  are  excellently  good  places.  They 
keep  our  finest  heritage  of  the  inner  life  from 
profane  and  common  handling.   They  tell  us  of  the 

12 


infinite  value  of  reticence  as  a  preserver  of  tender 
and  elusive  things.  We  may  well  thank  God  for  those 
gardens  enclosed,  and  for  every  cool  retreat  in  a 
world  whose  literature  and  whose  life  alike  are 
grown  so  vociferous  and  so  promiscuous  as  those 
of  today. 

Yet  upon  even  our  sweetest  gardens  there  must 
inevitably  fall  one  day  the  shadow  of  the  cross. 
Sooner  or  later,  but  quite  surely  sometime,  it  will 
invade  them.  I  do  not  mean  merely  that  the  dreamer 
of  delicate  dreams  will  have  to  include  in  his  imagi- 
nation the  pathetic  yet  half-pleasant  tomb,  saying  to 
himself,  /  shall  die.  I  mean  that  the  shadow  of  the 
real  cross  will  come  upon  them,  grim,  and  gaunt, 
and  searching. 

Thy  straight  long  beam  lies  steady  on  the  cross. 
Ah  me ! 

What  secret  would  thy  radiant  finger  show? 
Of  thy  bright  mastership  is  this  the  key? 

Is  this  thy  secret  then  and  is  it  woe? 

Even  so,  oh  cross!  thine  is  the  victory: 
Thy  roots  are  fast  within  our  fairest  fields. 

Brightness  may  emanate  in  heaven  from  thee: 
Here  thy  dread  symbol  only  shadow  yields. 

In  horror  we  watch  the  shades  of  death  taking 
possession  of  our  garden,  and  imparting  to  our  lives 
the  peculiar  quality  of  pain  and  sacrifice.  We  think 
that  all  is  over  with  the  sweet  fragrance  of  olden 
days,  that  never  more  again  shall  we  know  the 
fascinating  charm  of  the  earth.  It  may  be  so.  To 
some  extent  it  is  so,  doubtless.  Yet  the  change  is 
surely  for  the  better.  The  touch  of  some  great 
sorrow  or  sacrifice  which  life  has  demanded  of  us 
may  change  the  sheltered  coward  into  a  brave  man 

13 


who  bears  his  heart  exposed  and  unprotected  in  the 
open.  It  may  change  also  the  world  of  a  man's  ideals 
until  he  will  be  henceforth  ashamed  of  mere  selfish 
delight,  however  artistic,  and  will  be  constrained  to 
respond  to  the  demand  for  assuagement  of  the 
world's  sorrow  and  pain.  Christ  comes  to  all  our 
gardens  thus,  invading  and  claiming  them.  He 
brings  love,  and  the  open  generous  heart  that  tears 
down  the  gates  of  their  exclusiveness  and  insists  that 
we  shall  share  our  best  with  the  disinherited.  His 
coming  is  like  the  change  that  we  have  seen  from 
the  gardens  of  the  rich  to  the  gardens  of  the  poor, 
which  has  abolished  the  complacency  of  ancient  days 
and  established  the  social  conscience  in  society.  So 
for  us,  each  one  according  to  his  experience,  shall 
Christ  replace  our  demand  for  selfish  enjoyment 
with  His  greater  ideals  of  sacrifice  and  redemption. 
We  shall  still  have  our  secret  places,  nor  will  His 
presence  banish  any  of  the  fairest  elements  of  life; 
but  we  shall  no  longer  take  up  an  attitude  of  spiritual 
selfishness  towards  any  part  of  the  outer  world,  seek- 
ing rather  to  share  whatever  gifts  the  garden  may 
have  brought  us,  with  those  whose  poverty  of  spirit 
needs  such  gifts. 

Further,  there  is  still  the  new  tomb  in  the  garden. 
As  we  have  seen,  from  the  moment  when  the  shadow 
of  the  cross  had  touched  the  garden  of  Joseph,  there 
was  nothing  for  it  but  to  let  Jesus  in,  dead  or  living. 
So  when  His  cross  has  touched  our  lives  and  we 
have  felt,  either  in  the  understanding  of  His  suffer- 
ing or  in  the  experience  of  our  own,  something  of 
the  divine  meaning  of  sorrow  and  of  pain,  Christ 
comes  to  our  gardens.  We  must  let  Him  in.  And 
after  this  coming  of   His,  the  place  will  never  be 

14 


the  same  again.  For  us  as  for  Joseph  it  is  the 
shadow  of  the  cross  that  brings  Hght  and  changes 
the  tomb  that  once  was  there  into  the  promise  and 
portal  of  a  glorious  life.  In  all  the  gardens  of  our 
thought  and  feeling  there  is  indeed  the  inevitable 
tomb,  and  our  sense  of  death  is  naturally  chill 
and  dread.  That  is  but  human  nature.  But  now  the 
tomb  is  changed  from  the  shadow  of  death  to  the 
resting-place  of  Jesus,  and  the  ground  of  His  res- 
urrection. In  the  ideal  of  sacrifice  and  the  willing 
acceptance  of  the  cross  many  of  us  have  taken  the 
dead  Christ  into  our  garden ;  and  lo,  a  miracle !  The 
living  Christ  is  walking  with  us  there.  He  has  not 
only  brought  love  for  the  dead  and  the  perfume  of 
sweet  spices  rendering  an  ancient  memory  fragrant. 
Not  only  has  He  transformed  the  sacrifices  of  life 
into  a  new  revelation  of  love.  He  has  filled  our 
hearts  with  hope  and  promise  for  the  future  day. 
Our  shadowed  secret  places,  from  which  the  old 
selfish  luxuriousness  has  departed  at  the  entrance 
of  sorrow  or  of  death — these  may  become  for  us 
also  scenes  of  resurrection.  We  have  taken  the  dead 
Christ  to  our  hearts  and  shall  find  Him  living.  We 
have  reverenced  His  tomb  and  we  shall  see  His 
rising. 

Thus  all  the  beauty  of  art  and  the  tenderness  of 
love  need  to  be  touched  with  the  shadow  of  the 
cross  before  they  can  perfectly  fulfill  themselves. 
But  touched  with  that  shadow  the  garden  of  the  soul 
becomes  a  place  of  resurrection  where  Christ  will 
walk  henceforward  in  all  the  transfigured  beauty  of 
His  eternal  life.  We  do  not  suppose  Him  to  be  the 
Gardener  of  our  souls.  We  know  Him  to  be  the 
Master  of  the  garden.    He  shall  command  and  en- 

15 


hance  its  freshness  and  its  growth.  When  the  night 
falls  and  we  enter  into  our  own  new  tomb  we  shall 
find  it  sweet  with  the  fragrance  of  His  spices.  Then 
when  we  awake  it  shall  be  in  the  fields  of  the  blessed, 
the  eternal  gardens  of  the  Lord.  There  we  shall 
see  Him  once  again,  walking  in  the  sunlight,  and 
He  shall  call  us  by  our  name,  and  we  shall  answer 
as  we  did  on  earth,  "My  Master." 


16 


DATE  DUE 


,^7*>  I -"w^^gS, 


PRINTED  INU.«. A. 


BV4253.K29G21 

The  garden  and  the  cross 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Librar 


Hill! 

1    1012  00052  6113 


